oyed at the change, that I then
thought I would not have left the place to go to heaven.

Next year I was hired by Mr. John Micheau, of the same county, who
married my young mistress, one of the daughters of Mr. Grandy, and
sister of my present owner. This master gave us very few clothes, and
but little to eat. I was almost naked. One day he came into the field,
and asked why no more work was done. The older people were afraid of
him; so I said that the reason was, we were so hungry we could not
work. He went home and told the mistress to give us plenty to eat, and
at dinner-time we had plenty. We came out shouting for joy, and went
to work with delight. From that time we had food enough, and he soon
found that he had a great deal more work done. The field was quite
alive with people striving who should do most.

He hired me for another year. He was a great gambler. He kept me up
five nights together, without sleep night or day, to wait on the
gambling table. I was standing in the corner of the room, nodding for
want of sleep, when he took up the shovel and beat me with it; he
dislocated my shoulder, and sprained my wrist, and broke the shovel
over me. I ran away, and got another person to hire me.

This person was Mr. Richard Furley, who, after that, hired me at the
court house every year till my master came of age. He gave me a pass
to work for myself; so I obtained work by the piece where I could, and
paid him out of my earnings what we had agreed on; I maintained myself
on the rest, and saved what I could. In this way I was not liable to
be flogged and ill used. He paid seventy, eighty, or ninety dollars a
year for me, and I paid him twenty or thirty dollars a year more than
that.

When my master came of age, he took all his colored people to himself.
Seeing that I was industrious and persevering, and had obtained plenty
of work, he made me pay him almost twice as much as I had paid Mr.
Furley. At that time the English blockaded the Chesapeake, which made
it necessary to send merchandise from Norfolk to Elizabeth City by the
Grand Canal, so that it might get to sea by Pamlico Sound and Ocracock
Inlet. I took some canal boats on shares; Mr. Grice, who married my
other young mistress, was the owner of them. I gave him one half of
all I received for freight; out of the other half I had to victual and
man the boats, and all over that expense was my own profit.

Some time before this, my brother Benjamin returned fr